Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller[edit source]
I believe I have, here, one of the greatest literary works of all time. Enjoy! --ComradeSlice, Grue Army (92 Squadron) 04:35, December 27, 2010 (UTC)
I am so going to review this. Right now. Instead of doing something I probably should be doing. ~ 
22:11, 2 January 2011
Well, here's irony for you... I wound up doing the other thing, after all. Whoops. Really sorry about that. I really, really, really need to stop not doing reviews when I say I will. Ghah. ~ Major Pleb Dame -- 07:12, 5 January, 2011 (UTC)
| Concept: | 3 | 'One of the greatest literary works of all time, eh? I do hope you spoke in jest, as I hate to disappoint, but this really isn't much of an article at all as it is so far. While with work you should be able to turn the piece around, as it is, it is short, cursory, inconsistent, it jumps around and for the most part just isn't even that funny - most of what it has is what we like to call 'random humour' around these parts. It may seem amusing in its ridiculousness at first (Hey, look, a squirrel!), but let me tell you, the novelty wears off quickly (Great, another family of squirrels moved into the attic... time to replair the eves again...). Few articles successfully pull it off, and while it is doable, I don't think it is a very good approach here, as the best parts to me were the ones based off what actually happened with the fellow (or were believable that they did, at least; I'm not actually that familiar with the guy) - his apparent reaction to having his monopoly broken, making two, it is a nice twist. But then it goes back into the realm of huh? and starts talking about wireless... If you build more off the guy himself, mocking both general and specific points in his actual history, interspersing with the less real (paralleling, perhaps? Works if the parallel is apparent), it would probably be a lot funnier as well as give you a fair bit more to work with. The thing aboubt making stuff up is that it still should make sense, which a lot of this just plain doesn't, either due to being too random or skimming over parts too quickly such that the reader is just not sure what it going on. But first you need an angle - some overall way in which you approach the article that makes it actually funny as a whole, not just a collection of jokes. Is it that he's rich? That he monopolised? Why is that funny, then? How does it affect everything he is/does, everything about him, and how can you play it out? Saying he's the richest man ever to walk the Earth could be the start, but all you do is turn it into a 'Your momma' joke, essentially. 'Yo momma's so fat that when she walks into a bar...' fill in the punchline. There is little bredth that way; you can do more. Talk about how rich he actually is. If it is to be the main point of the article, bring up throughout the different aspects of his richness. How it saved him time and again from problems, or how it got him into them, and whatnot... whatever you do, stick to the angle, whatever you go with. It's your main point, in a way. Admittedly, it starts out seeming as if the main thing is the very premise of a 'SexxonMobile'; such is the power of introductions. Playing off Exxon and the word sex, and then taking the 'mobile' to mean 'mobile phone', however, it is too much of a stretch with too little impact on the ovrall article to be the angle, and the list of phones branded didn't really do it for me, either. Puns can be amusing, but they are single jokes only and often verge into the realm of outrageous. The problem with making outrageous claims is that it can be very difficult to move them from beyond the realm of outrageously dumb to outrageously funny - need to suspend disbelief. Within the context of the article, it still needs to make sense, even if the sense is merely 'that's just how it is', it needs to be emphasised somehow so that it doesn't just come across as random. He buys oil companies from a lemonade stand? He´s a pimp? He put the competiton out of business by monopolising rest of the rest of industry? The whole point of monopolising is so that there ain´t competition, I thought, but that aside, that doesn´t actually say anything about how. How did he actually monopolise it, since the lemonade stand thing is clearly a joke, right? What is the joke referring to? How did the feds break it up? This have anything to do with him later apparently donating to them? Surely there must be something notable/interesting about that, beyond that it happened? Looking at the last two sections, the philanthropy would make an excellent overall angle on the fellow. As you may have noticed, companies these days make a very big deal of it, 'Corporate-Social Responsibility', or some such, a great show for the sake of sales, because people like to care... or at least pretend to. It's the in thing to do. And things that parallel between what readers are familiar with and the subject at hand make for rather excellent angles. But donating to the federal goverment? So much more that could be done with that; bribery is all very well and fine, but how is that really funny? Play on it more, at very least... As for the end, what? Seriously, eh? That's just random. |
| Humour: | 5 | This has individual jokes - some border on meme, but you seem to have a grasp of smaller funnies. Here, you need a larger funny; it may also help to make sense of the thing. Once you figure out what your angle is and shape your article around that and make sure the individual jokes still fit, further amusement should flow from there. |
| Prose and formatting: | 3 | Aside from the obvious 'it's really short,' it's really rather short. As I said before, you need to expand on your points. One to two sentences per section/paragraph is never a good sign to start with, and as the point of sections is generally to split groupings of paragraphs by more general ideas, you might notice yours really are a bit short. So use the room that is clearly there to expand, build upon your points, get across to the critical like me that you are indeed saying something. Back it all up.
And you also need to introduce it better - the lead is important, generally the part that decides if a person will actually read the article at all. Start making whatever point is your main there, be cursory, and be funny, and the reader will be hooked and move on to the more in-depth stuff that follows. But it also needs to be presentable. Be too ugly, and you could drive a reader away - I mention this because of the templates at the top. Seriously, you'll want to lose the bright red templates. Not only do they not really add anything, not even funny or helpful to the point of the article, they're also rather ugly. Problem with box templates - they're really not that helpful a lot of the time, kind of like quotes. If used correctly, they might be useful for some small point, but articles merit themselves with the content made for the articles themselves, for the text and images actually written in and accenting the body of the things, not for tack-on templates. Your tone, too, is rather... sporadic. At times encyclopedic, academically describing the fellow and his deeds, it wanders off into the realm of conversational fairly at random, breaking the fourth wall without cause and somewhat ruining what credibilty it had. Generally, keep the person consistent - if an article is written in third-person, keep it that way. If it is infomative-encyclcopedic as this currently seems to be, don't use exclamation points, insist! ing things... And lastly, remember - the end is the end - it should be the conclusion/punchline thing, tying it all together, completing the joke, or some such, but whatever the case, it is important. Make your article end strong. |
| Images: | 4 | Well... the images sort of fit - the cartoon one of the fellow is a lovely image, but the caption doesn't even make sense with the article, and the Monopoly game reference just seems forced, and doesn't fit the overall tone of the piece. I'm sure you could do more with it - some reference, perhaps? Something about the hat itself? It's saying that he's an emperor, no? Does he say that himself?
The second fits the section, but that section... just... no. Also, the caption's not that funny. So it was expensive, so what? Some twist, perhaps, some irony? Maybe he found in retrospect that it wasn't entirely what the brochure had said? Mind, I really think you should lose the entire notion of the... whatever that is, ascention thing, since it just makes no sense, but that's the kind of thing that can work with captions in general. |
| Miscellaneous: | 4 | Eh. Impression. Arbitrary number on an arbitrary scale... oh, just read the comments, will you? I tried to say what I mean. |
| Final Score: | 19 | Once you expand upon whatever it is you are doing or decide to do, this could well shape out to be a rather decent article, but you have a ways to go as it is. I don't mean to seem harsh, but this is simply where I feel it is at as it is - these are my opinions and my suggestions, and do I hope they help, but you are by no means bound to them, either... if you have any questions, comments or whatnot, feel free to stop by my talkpage, and good luck. |
| Reviewer: | ~ Major Pleb Sir -- 07:12, 5 January, 2011 (UTC)
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